(1) Field of the Invention
This invention involves a game of skill and requires a demonstration of vocabulary knowledge, logical reasoning and sequencing abilities—all of which are enhanced during play of this invention. More specifically, the present invention concerns, but is not restricted to, the area of child educational development. Further, it is at once adaptable to any of the related Indo-European languages, and can be further adapted to the Asian languages.
The key element of this invention comprises a closable-type box apparatus where grid regions are imprinted on the top box lid, and being connected to a bottom container of the same dimensions, opens to a ninety-degree angle wherein two more grids of the same height, length, and number of units are revealed as being imprinted on the interior surface of the top lid and the interior surface of the bottom portion of the apparatus.
The apparatus/invention operates as a concealing mechanism for words formed by opposing players in competition. Each player, or team of players, uses the bottom game grid to create words inside the apparatus via magnetized lettered tile pieces which are affixed onto individual spaces of the bottom interior grid. The upper grid on the inside of each apparatus is used to chart and track the progression of a player's attempts to locate and identify his/her opponent's words. In essence, the interior upper grid, inside the apparatus, represents the opponent's game region—the focus of attack. In a competition involving more than two players or teams, the hit or miss attempts against one's own region are identified on his/her own outer grid; he/she places the magnetized letters and other identifying game pieces onto the outer top grid as letters and their composite words are identified and eliminated out of competition. Obviously, the outer lid grids are visible to all opponents and therefore maintain the orderliness of who has eliminated what during play. Thus, this allows multiple players or teams to visually asses the game status of fellow competitors and judge future attempts to capture others' letters.
The game, as defined by the invented apparatus, while retaining aspects of similar commercial products, is characterized by its emphasis on elimination of pre-arranged words and configurations thereabouts. This enhances the game's ability to achieve and maintain involvement in several ways: (1) through requiring strategic placement of letters onto grid coordinates in ways which will prevent or delay opponents discovering such; (2) enabling players opportunities, by means of arbitrary and calculated guesses in various play options, to determine the precise locations and identities of opponents' letters before participants capture his/her own placed word grouping patterns, or in the case of more than two players or teams, being the last player or team with letters remaining on his/her or their bottom interior game grid—that region which is the focus of attack for the other opponent(s).
It is the element of attempting elimination of opponent's “fleet” of words which lends the game to aspects of simulated warfare. The game can therefore be categorized in a salvo classification.
(2) Description of Related Art
Games, where two participants play in opposition, have been provided which typically comprise a boxed apparatus. When this apparatus is opened, a pair of areas sectioned equally into coordinate grids of similar size and numbered units is revealed. Each coordinate within the pair of grids typically has an aperture into which valued game pieces are inserted and removed. A particular player's grids are hidden from the view of the competing opponent during play. One grid in the apparatus is for placement and prepositioning of valued game pieces—the targets that the opponent is to eliminate. The second grid in the apparatus is utilized relative to the opponent's action area—the grid onto which he/she has placed his/her own valued game pieces. The second grid is therefore used to record the attempts made in targeting and eliminating the opponent's valued game pieces. Thus, such a game is essentially a military or naval style product whose objective is to be the first in locating and eliminating the opponent's units.
An example is typified by Thomander in U.S. Pat. No. 3,514,110 which sets forth a boxed game board divided into a pair of identical sections adapted to be arranged adjacent to each other and separated by an upright barrier formed from the box lid so as to obscure the selected placement of ferruled game pieces on one of the boards from the view of opposing player. “Hit” or “miss” attempts relative to the opponent's grid placements are recorded on one of a player's grids. Once there is a hit, that is recorded not just by that player on one of his/her grids, but by the second opponent by inserting markings onto his/her own valued pieces.
Another example is set forth by Woolhouse in U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,428 where the two playing fields, each composed of a pair of sectioned grid areas, are mounted to each other in a way that provides for ease of assembly and disassembly into a carrying case for transport.
Of course, the origin of such games is “Battleship”—a pencil and paper game invented by Von Wickler and then formally published as a pad and pencil game by Milton Bradley in 1943. These games have been restricted to competition between 2 players (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_ (game)).
Further, there are various word-forming type games where objectives vary, but whose underlying theme is creating, strategizing toward, solving for and discovering words and their composite letters. An example is typified by Kindred in U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,273 which sets forth a game that comprises a board having twenty six rows of playing areas arranged in five columns, into which playing pieces may be placed. An opponent attempts to break a hidden code formed by the pieces. The rows are numbered A-Z and the attempts are scores according to the nearness to an accurate guess by the player. The code has five such letters forming a word, one letter per column.
Another example is typified by Jones-Fenleigh in U.S. Pat. No. 4,188,036 which sets forth a game comprising a board, a holder, a set of playing pieces, a set of marking elements, a set of scoring elements, and a word list. The board has a number of rows of playing areas which serve as test areas for a player's attempts in duplicating a hidden code word chosen by the player's opponent.
While military/naval style games have been provided where participants strategically place valued pieces in coordinate grids and attempt to locate and eliminate one another's pieces within a defined area, and while there are various word-forming type games whose underlying theme is creating, strategizing toward, solving for and discovering words and their component letters, it is important to note that games have been provided regarding the injection of letters, instead of military or naval units, into a grid coordinate system so as to represent a “fleet” of words for elimination by an opponent Several games have been published on-line which provide set-up instructions and rules for such competitions.
For example, http://www.superteacherideas.com/spelling2-battleship.html has the game activity “Sink and Spell” where students make a sheet with two grids. Letters are written on the top and numbers to the side for coordinate identification. The players then write words into the grids. Coordinates are called out. A miss indicates no letter in a particular space, but a hit results in the opponent revealing the letter. This game is played by a pair of opponents.
Another example posted on this website, “Battleship Spelling”, is a more detailed version of “Sink and Spell” with guidelines regarding number of words to use and dimensions of paper sheets on which to create the grids. The listing actually states that this is “just like the Battleship board game”.
Http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LASpellBattleship3JH.htm, posts “Spelling Battleship” with the rule that once there is a “hit” on any particular coordinate, the opponent is immediately told the word and he/she then has to spell it correctly. If that player correctly spells the word, he/she gets a point and the word is revealed in its entirety; otherwise the turn is lost. That player, however, may reattempt the spelling on the next turn by calling the space coordinate. The first player to locate and spell all the words on his/her opponent's grid wins.
An advantage of military/naval style games of the prior art is developing within players the skills important for tracking dispersal of attacks over a coordinate system and anticipating where the next “hits” could be. This advantage is constrained, however, in that they engage players on mere hit-or-miss cues, limiting assessments to success failure ratios between opponents' progress against one another's targets. Advantages of word games of the prior art encourage players to develop spelling abilities for accurate vocabulary usage, as well as to figure out how words are encoded into language, their meanings, and differences in relation to one another for the ultimate objective of communication.
These two key features: (1) initiating, tracking, and assessing the success or failure in targeting unknown pre-positioned objectives within a military/naval style grid coordinate-type system, and (2) creating and solving for words in a puzzle-type environment have been combined by inventors to create innovative games. Substituting words and their respective letters for military/naval units into the typical coordinate grid system of a sectioned, visually hidden region is a clear advantage of such inventions. The result is an expansion of the identifiable qualities of each occupied coordinate so that, once a unit is determined to be occupied, arbitrary guesses leading to more calculated judgments can be taken, thus bringing a mere salvo objective to one where vocabulary can increase the necessity for higher logic and sequencing skills.
Typically, where games require a level of skill from players, it must be arranged in a way that provides adequate challenge to players/teams. Even though the game board is uniform throughout, the region itself changes as players agree from competition to competition on labels for rank (row) and file (column) to map the coordinate region. These labels can be letters, numbers, colors, objects, or such. This therefore keeps the apparatus' themselves changing and new, to an extent.
But over time, even this dynamic can become familiar, to the point of simplicity since the rules governing the word attack apply uniformly throughout the game board playing field. What adds complexity is the level of knowledge players bring to the game. In theory, the level of difficulty would only be limited by the degree of scholarship; college graduates with complex word knowledge could increase the level of challenge. Since the rules remain somewhat straight forward, the game can be as easy or as difficult depending on the sophistication of the players, whose talents ultimately govern the complexity of the competition itself.
It is important to note that a key disadvantage of previously provided word-salvo games is their allowance for a maximum of two players in any competition. They are thus limited in the scope of complexity which could be achieved through three or more opponent play.